


Scar Tissue

by Anonymous



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alec Ryder's A+ Parenting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Disabled Character, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Islam, M/M, No Smut, Pathfinder Ryder is a sensible adult, Torfan (Mass Effect), canon-typical family drama, no porn only snuggles, semi-likeable!Alec Ryder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 10:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30037110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Iskandar Ryder doesn’t feel adequate. Jaal helps.Jaal doesn’t want Akksul dead, despite everything. Ryder will do his best.
Relationships: Alec Ryder & Male Ryder | Scott, Female Ryder | Sara & Male Ryder | Scott, Jaal Ama Darav/Male Ryder | Scott
Collections: Spectre Requisitions 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



London was beautiful, seen from Jien Carson’s penthouse window. Cora leaned back in her armchair and snapped a few more photos. If she had children, they’d want to know about Earth.

“Thank fuck  _ that’s  _ over,” Alec Ryder said. “Tea?”

They’d spent most of the day being photographed for the advertisements, wearing uniforms, armour, implausibly skimpy uniforms… trying to stand Alec next to Barro and Raeka in a way that didn’t make him look doll-sized, trying to convince Barro that humans would think he was more masculine if he  _ wasn’t  _ covered in glitter, making Barro’s ex-assassin boyfriend stop hiding up the back… 

Most of the human team had run off with Raeka and Hayjer, who wanted to learn about “Saint Paul’s Cathedral” and “udon soup”. Cora and Alec had decided to hide. 

“What has the most caffeine?” Cora asked him. “Can I have a large one of that?” 

Alec prodded the shiny drinks machine till it spat out an iced green tea and a large black coffee. “Here you go. Caffeine.” He handed her the coffee and collapsed into the armchair opposite her.

Outside the window, the sun was setting over thousands of skyscrapers and millions of lights.

Alec prodded his omni-tool and looked pleased. “Oh  _ good.  _ Junior’s arriving in a few days. He can help drill some of Kelly’s security people!” He shook his head. “He’s got the patience for it!”

“Your son?” She’d heard good things about the younger Alexander Ryder. A Marine with an impressive selection of medals. Biotic Adept, Vanguard-qualified…  _ damn,  _ it’d be good to spend time with another human who shared her powers! “Sensible kid,” Alec had called him once.

He nodded. “It’ll be so good to work with him again.” He frowned for a moment. “Even if he’s  _ still  _ calling himself Iskandar.”

Wasn’t that the Arabic version? Iskandar, the Great? “I suppose that saves confusion?”

“True,” Alec said. “He’s a great kid, even if he’s made a few odd life choices. I think you’ll like each other.”

Odd life choices?

He never talked about his daughter, she’d noticed, except to boast about her scientific career. 

Cora sipped bitter coffee. “I’ll look forward to meeting him!”


	2. Chapter 2

Aya. An unknown planet. An unknown planet inhabited by a  _ completely unexpected alien species _ . 

The little white room had a thick metal blast door and no windows. Iskandar stood to attention on one side of the room, and the massive alien guerilla stood on the other.

The room was hollowed out into a cliff face. Light came from the ceiling without an obvious source, and the corners were rounded as though it had been grown rather than built. The blast door looked weirdly tacked on. Someone had tried to make things more normal with some old chairs and a colourful rag rug.

" _ Hmm, _ " the guerilla said. His huge blue cat-eyes were fixed on Skandar like there was nothing else in the galaxy.

Jaal. His name was Jaal Ama Darav. Praise God, it was something pronounceable! This was going to be awkward enough without mispronunciations! What if badly pronounced names were a deadly insult around here?

Skandar must have subvocalized the name, because SAM repeated it with a better accent on the private channel. “Jaal ama Darav.”

_ First contact,  _ Skandar told SAM silently. _ Me. Alien on my ship. Big, looming, gun-wielding alien with arms the size of my thighs. Where do we even put him? He’ll need his own room! _

“The armoury is rather cramped, as quarters for an honoured emissary,” SAM pointed out. “Perhaps the tech lab?”

_ I'll have to make Suvi and Gil stop camping in the tech lab, then. They can sleep on my bedroom floor? _

_ I can't tell where he's vulnerable. There's no bone protecting his throat or belly, and he must have vital organs there… that chunk missing from his neck obviously didn’t kill or disable him… please God, don't let that ever be a practical concern! _

“So,” Jaal said. His voice was a deep, soft bass rumble. “You were a soldier.” 

Skandar kept his expression calm and friendly. "I was what we call a Marine." He nodded. "Front line combat, in defense of my people." How exactly had Jaal trained? This Ayan military seemed more than slightly jury-rigged.

Jaal's eyes ran up and down Skandar's body, probably looking for vulnerable points himself. "With your," Jaal rubbed his fingers together, "ah, I am certain there is a better word than blue fire? I believe this is useful for combat?"

There was no point trying to keep secrets from Jaal. He was coming with them, as the price of leaving Aya in one piece. Skandar drew up a careful biotic field, and used it to smooth a few stray hairs back into his long braid. Jaal's slit pupils widened.

He'd dyed his hair bright scarlet like Commander Shepard, and then of course there was no dye available in Andromeda so he had a clear inch of black roots and he had to make first contact like that... he really hoped aliens would assume it was natural?

"We call it biotics," Skandar explained in his best giving-a-lecture voice. "It's unusual in most species but standard in asari - those are the ones who look like me, except blue and without the fur? Very useful for combat! Also perfect for," he didn't have to fake a smile, this was genuinely funny, "heavy lifting, taking things off high shelves,” he twitched gravity sideways to pull the lumpy rug straight, “drinking tea with your hands full..."

Big blue eyes. "You must be fortunate to have this talent?"

Skandar winced. "It worked out well for me." He didn't have to be  _ that _ honest. "There can be side effects. My sister wound up with health problems instead."

Ellen didn't even get powers before the stuff rotted her nerves. She'd spent her last three years in nappies. And Li Hua was born missing a few chunks of brain. She was smarter than he'd ever be, but she still had seizures even on the new meds and needed crutches to get around.

"I'm looking forward to waking up my sister," he added. "I miss her. She's a xenoarchaeologist, she'll love this place."

Jaal's brow ridges rose. "She is frozen still?"

"Till things are more stable." Till they got a reliable supply of neurological medications! There was a non-zero chance she'd just die if she ran out! The  _ fuck,  _ Tann, medication factories were supposed to be up and running when the arks arrived...

Jaal pursed his little almost-human mouth. "You defended your people. Against what?"

Oh  _ praise God  _ he was back to being nosy about military strategy. "I worked largely in anti-piracy operations. And my species had a persistent enemy." He nodded. "It started out as a border disagreement that got out of hand, but then they started raiding our colonies and taking slaves..."

_ That  _ struck a chord, not surprisingly given the kett. Jaal's lips pulled back in an animal snarl.

"We had one official war with the Hegemony," Skandar went on, "when I was just old enough to fight, and  _ let me tell you  _ I fought." It was safer never to mention the Battle of Torfan by name. People didn’t think of his team, clearing one room at a time and dragging out prisoners in cuffs, or of the victory – they thought of Hana Park shooting prisoners, and telling the tribunal they’d deserved it. “We won. And since then, it's mostly been proxy wars and piracy.”

Jaal was back to intense, unblinking eye contact. "Your species seems  _ very prone  _ to piracy."

" _ What?  _ You just met -  _ " _

_ " _ Sloane Kelly." The name was weirdly accented but recognisable. "She is of your kind?"

" _ Sloane Kelly?  _ I thought she was dead!" Pirate? "What did she  _ do?"  _ Sloane? His old sergeant? Who’d shown him the trick to disassembling a Scimitar?

Jaal's gaze didn't waver. "She and her followers took a port occupied by kett, occupied it themselves, and declared themselves overlords. And many of them - not endorsed by her, she  _ claims -  _ have been raiding the surrounding countryside." He clenched his teeth. "I will give them credit - they are preferable to the kett!"

_ Sloane?  _ "Shit!  _ She  _ did... Where?" She’d been dishonourably discharged the year after Torfan, after a fistfight with her CO, but then she’d shown up in London and been so sensible and helpful and wished him a nice nap…

"Greyrock Port. On Kadara." Brow ridges went up. "You did not know this?"

The fuck the fuck the fuck. "Where's Kadara?" He tried to keep his voice calm.

"It is a planet. You have not mapped it?"

"No! What the hell's Sloane done and what can I do about it?" The  _ fuck.  _ Sloane?

Alec died and Garson died and ...now this. Skandar was twenty-five! He hadn't signed up to be the adult in the room!

"Sloane Kelly is your enemy?" Jaal said.

"I hope not!" Shit, he'd really liked her - he needed to see what was going on, now! "Look, I worked with her and I don't want to fight her - but  _ raiding the countryside? _ I need the full story, now!"

Jaal nodded slowly. "We all have our loyalties."

...Skandar might have passed some sort of test. Or failed. He wasn't sure.


	3. Chapter 3

Li Hua was still beige-faced and wobbly from cryo, and wired up to a bunch of neuro-monitors in medbay just in case, but she seemed to be enjoying her tea.

"It's Eos Chai," Skandar explained. "Local edible herbs boiled in soy milk. I'm afraid we ran out of the Sur’Kesh stuff months ago."

Li Hua winced. "No  _ real tea?"  _ She grinned for a moment. _ " _ Now that's roughing it! When do we plant some?"

"Fuck knows. I'm afraid food's still a luxury unless it's yeast paste."

"Oh, eww."

He patted her on the head, carefully avoiding the wires. "My little Citadel scientist. How  _ will  _ you cope without fifty varieties of takeaway outside your door?"

She jabbed him in the thigh with her crutch. "By whinging! I appreciate the tea, then!" She took another sip.

There was an awkward pause. Machines beeped. A few beds away, someone dropped something and swore.

“Dad,” she said quietly, staring into her mug.

She’d woken up knowing.

Why was there no damn privacy?

“I’m sorry,” Skandar said. “I kept trying to seal my helmet till I passed out, but the hole was too big. I, I don’t know  _ why  _ he made that choice either, but I’ve been trying to make the best of it…”

How was he supposed to make eye contact?

“The  _ fuck?”  _ Li Hua spat, wide dark eyes boring holes into him. “Man makes the first decent parenting decision of his life, and you try to pull some I-don’t-deserve-to-live martyr thing?”

“He was so much better suited –”

“Listen, Skandar. I don’t have a father. Never did.” Her hand clenched around the mug. “Thanks for the DNA and money, Alec, now bugger off. Might’ve had a go at forgiving him if he was alive? Pissed off I didn’t get the chance, maybe?” Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “But I won’t miss him, and  _ I would have fucking missed you.  _ Understood?”

“…he was my father…”

A tent in a warm West Australian forest, with magpies warbling and Alec wrapped in a sleeping bag. Alec Jr must’ve been twelve or thirteen, not old enough to make trouble yet. He’d held up the box of ration bars and said  _ hey Dad, let’s see how long we can go before we open this! _

_ Nice,  _ Alec Sr said,  _ these are definitely bloodroot leaves. Get the shovel.  _ Delicious spicy tubers that dyed their mouths black.  _ On the bright side, Junior, black lipstick suits ya! _

_ This is how you set up a tent. This is how you weave a tent out of vines, if you don’t have one. This is how you set snares for rabbits. This is how you clean a rabbit and cook it in the ashes. _

_ I kept myself alive on Shanxi by foraging. Went bush, and hit the Hierarchy’s supply lines whenever I could. It wasn’t their fault they couldn’t forage for themselves – that was just their biology – but damn, it worked in our favour! _

_ I recommend  _ not _ fighting the Hierarchy, if you can help it. But,  _ a grin and a raised eyebrow, _ just in case they decide to play up again… _

Alec nibbling on a rabbit leg.  _ You overcooked this, but that’s a hell of a lot safer than undercooked! _

Li Hua had been on the Citadel – studying, or in hospital having her brain rewired again, he couldn’t remember.

Alec taught Skandar to surf. Shooting through green tunnels like an arrow, steadying himself with his biotics…

_ As soon as they’ve got me on the right meds,  _ Li Hua told him,  _ I’ll come surfing with you! I can’t keep up camping, but as soon as they stop my brain short-circuiting,  _ she nodded hard,  _ I’m learning to surf. You can laugh when I fall off. _

She’d just hit puberty and started wearing makeup. Glitter lipstick and too much black eyeshadow, and drawn-on facial markings like an asari maiden.

Of course, the right meds didn’t exist. It never was safe for her to swim.

Skandar looked away. Looked into his lap. “I suppose he wasn’t yours. I was a kid. Took what I could get.”

“I  _ think  _ I’m past being jealous of you,” Li Hua growled. “I got to be Ellen’s little girl, after all. Alec, though?” She reached out and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly. “ _ You get to live.  _ No dying. Is that understood?”

“I’ll do my best?”

She nodded. “Fuck’s sake. What makes you think he’d be more competent than you, anyway?”

What? “He was a N7 Operative who –”

“Yes, and it turns out our Terra Nullius  _ isn’t  _ nullius, again, so half your job’s diplomacy! You think Alec could have handled that old bastard Evfra, or whatever Nakmor Morda thinks she’s doing, without starting a war?”

Skandar thought Alec and Evfra would have gotten along famously. Alec and Morda, on the other hand? Hmm. Yes, that wasn’t a good line of thought.

“I’m not a diplomat,” he pointed out. “My resume says I’m good at blowing up pirates.”

“Overlord Morda. You did not blow up Overlord Morda!” She wasn’t letting go of his hand.

“Would’ve liked to punch her,” he muttered, “but I’d probably break my wrist.” Alliance rules for hand-to-hand with krogan: DON’T. “Last time I saw the stubborn old bugger, she gave me a plate of raw varren quads, told me it was good for me, and glared at me like she’d take offense if I didn’t eat them. And some centipede animal that was still twitching.”

Li Hua’s mouth twitched. “Doesn’t your god say no to eating varren?”

“Hey, I never said I was  _ good  _ at Islam, except compared to Suvi… I decided it was required. To preserve my health. I planted some trees in atonement. On the bright side, the balls weren’t bad as sashimi! Like, I’ve eaten  _ so  _ much worse…”

She leaned forwards. “Stop making jokes. Somehow you haven’t fucked this up –”

What? “Ishara’s dead. Sarissa’s publically disgraced. The entire  _ Natanus  _ is missing, and  _ I got twenty of Drack’s friends exalted! _ ”

“I _ don’t _ think you killed Ishara!” She squeezed his hand more tightly. “You haven’t fucked it up  _ much.  _ And would you trust Alec with diplomacy?”

Skandar liked to think of himself as an honest man.

“He was a scientist. Soldier. Not good with people.” He took a deep breath. “But he was properly trained for this, he’d’ve coped with the  _ Paarchero,  _ I threw up in that anatomy lab -” 

She dropped his hand. “Fuck this! Unfuck your head a bit then come back. You get to like Alec if you want to like Alec, but get off this  _ ooh I’m an inferior copy  _ shit in front of me!”

“Li Hua, I…”

“ _ Thank you for the tea.  _ It’s good tea. Now fuck off!”


	4. Chapter 4

The corridor out of the cryo bay was covered in names – everyone tagged the wall on their first walk out. Someone had spilled brown goo on the tiles.

Well. Alec was as dead as Ellen, and unfortunately deader than Drack’s scouts, and crying wouldn’t bring any of them back.

“The situation is complex,” SAM said, “and I am not sure I understand it.”

“Neither do I,” Skandar muttered to him. Twenty scouts turned into half-sapient shock troops, who could have gone home to their families if he’d moved faster. It was like they’d been distilled into the krogan bogeymen Tann feared. Drack had written their names all over the kitchen wall, in his own language and in English. “At least  _ you _ got along with Dad!”

“To be fair,” SAM pointed out, sounding surprisingly pissed off for an AI, “he designed my personality to be agreeable. This works less well with organic intelligences!”

Not SAM too. “I’m not really up to this conversation. Sorry.”

“I will see if Li Hua is willing to talk to me,” SAM said, and set himself to privacy mode.

Skandar ran circles around hydroponics til his legs cramped up, said his midday prayers with extra requests for family harmony and for those lost scouts’ souls, and headed back to the Tempest to shower.

He’d given Li Hua the last of his tea. And the last of his sugar. The best possible use for it, but now he had no tea.

He washed his hair very carefully, and stood in front of the mirror to blow-dry it. At least he’d been able to dye the roots red again.

It was good hair, thick and glossy and perfectly straight, almost down to his waist now. He’d never win a beauty contest – face as narrow as a hatchet, and not enough chin to balance the pointy hooked nose – but he was tall and strong and fit with shiny hair, and his skin was smooth and healthy and a nice shade of red-brown. People looked at him when he wanted them to.

Li Hua was always the pretty one, plump and dark and wide-eyed, with the same hooked nose shrunk down to a size where it actually matched her face.

He’d find her some lipstick. Angara wore lipstick. He’d be able to find something that suited her skin tone. It might be purple, but she liked purple.

“Are you decent?” Jaal bellowed through the door. Skandar jumped.

“Um.” He had a towel ‘round his waist, anyway. “Yes?”

Jaal barged in and started angrily washing engine grease off his hands.

Skandar flicked off the hair dryer – he was nearly done, and it made an odd whining noise. “You all right?” he asked Jaal.

“I will survive.” Jaal shook his head, scrubbed his hands dry, and started to moisturise his face. “I have had a  _ deeply frustrating  _ conversation with a younger sister. She feels my current position is ‘too dangerous’ and I must return to Aya yesterday.”

A funny time to start worrying! Skandar raised his eyebrows. “She coped with you sneaking around Occupied Voeld making APCs out of duct tape, but she doesn’t trust Kallo to stay out of the Scourge?”

“She does not trust Kallo, in general _.”  _ Jaal frowned. “Apparently the Tempest is inhabited by ‘untrustworthy rootless aliens.’ Even…” he glared at his reflection in the mirror, “infested.”

Oh, not this shit again.  _ God, grant me strength. And PR skills. _ “Hmm,” he told Jaal, and winked. “Well, you  _ were  _ thrown into a volcano. I suppose that was never a risk on Voeld!”

Jaal winced. “Ugh. Let us ensure she  _ never  _ hears about that.”

At least T’Reve was disposed of. Killing your own people was never ideal, but they hadn’t been in a position to take dangerous and uncooperative prisoners, and she obviously couldn't be trusted to cooperate and… look, maybe he’d had enough of the way she treated Peebee. He’d unpack that later. It hadn’t been a  _ bad  _ idea.

“Sisters, eh?” he said instead. “I shot a kangaroo for mine once – it’s an Earth animal, it’s very tasty – and she spent the next two weeks being a vegetarian.”

“Teviint is fifteen.” Jaal sighed. “At this age, it is traditional to fall in love inappropriately. With either a person or an ideology. She will recover soon, I imagine.” He shook his head. “At that age, I was communing with explosive Remnant.” He rubbed moisturiser into the old scar across his neck. “Screaming about politics should be safer!”

“Wait.  _ That’s  _ how you…” He’d never had the chance to ask about that huge scar, without it being weird. He’d assumed something  _ much  _ more badass.

“Oh, yes.” Jaal smiled ruefully. “It resembled a large friendly metal spider and it obeyed me intermittently for several hours, and then suddenly it was in many little pieces and there was blood everywhere.” He winced. “I was not allowed to leave the house alone for  _ months. _ ”

“ _ Ouch.” _

Jaal smiled at him. “I hope you did nothing quite that stupid? I imagine you were a well behaved boy? Or,” he raised his eyebrows, “did you spend your teens falling out of airlocks and into volcanoes and into idiotic ideologies? And get it all out of your system then?”

Skandar smiled back. “Oh, I was  _ impeccably  _ behaved. All homework and cadet training, and only dating people my parents liked.” In hindsight he’d missed a lot of fun, but his report cards weren’t to be sneezed at! “My first girlfriend was a turian, but is that even controversial on the Citadel? Mum and Dad looked startled for two seconds then fetched the dextro snacks.” He hadn’t thought about Yari in ages. She’d left for boot camp, and her parents went back to Altakiril, and they’d lost touch. He hoped she’d had a good life. “Hmm. Dad chucked a bit of a wobbly when I got religion.” Skandar wrinkled his nose. “I had to train him out of making “invisible sky fairy” jokes, by giving him the silent treatment.” He turned to look up at Jaal. “Ooh!” He put a hand to his heart. “I joined up with one of Earth’s older and more respectable religions and decided I wanted my own name! How scandalous!”

Jaal widened his eyes in faux shock. “A very great scandal. To tire of being Alec Junior! I am appalled.”

Skandar paused. He might as well go there - Jaal would understand. “…Torfan, you know. We all did our jobs damn well – except Park, and Major Kyle I suppose – and I was part of a ten-man squad and five and a half of us came out.” Amelia McMartin. Padma Lao. Chizutere Nwaike. Kiran Ganambarr, who’d lived long enough to say goodbye. He shrugged. “It helped to have something to hang onto.”

Jaal nodded. He didn’t need to say anything.

He was very solid. Big enough that he could pick up Skandar and cuddle him like a teddy bear, if he wanted to.

“…the religion argument never really ended, you know,” Skandar said. “I just trained Dad to not talk about it.”

“Hmm,” Jaal said, and frowned. “Well. I hope he has gone  _ somewhere  _ pleasant?”

Skandar nodded. “I get a bit of a kick out of imagining him waking up on Judgement Day. A bunch of angels show up to welcome him to Paradise, and he spends a while jabbing his finger at them and yelling that they shouldn’t exist before he heads in…”

And for no good reason, his eyes started leaking. Just quietly dripping tears down his neck and onto his chest. 

Jaal nodded, and put a big warm hand on his bare shoulder. “The angels have almost certainly been called worse! Perhaps they will…  _ mildly disapprove _ .”

“They’ll look down their noses and say they’re not angry.” It took effort to keep his voice steady. “Just disappointed. Beautiful angels made of light, a few sizes bigger than him, telling him the garden’s that way when he gets over his tantrum.” It was supposed to be a funny image, dammit, but his eyes and nose wouldn’t stop dripping. He grabbed a washcloth.

Jaal squeezed his shoulder. “Or we can use my religion. Perhaps he can try being my nephew?” He smiled. “I am sure my mothers can keep Tiny Alec in line?”

“…well,  _ that’s  _ an interesting image!” Tiny Alec zooming around Havarl poking Remnant artifacts? “They’d have their work cut out, keeping him away from the exploding spiders!”

…he’d be adorable. Would he be pink?

Jaal’s mouth twitched. “We could pat him on the head. And tell him little children should not be bossy.” He still had his hand on Skandar’s shoulder, and given that Jaal was wearing an old rofjinn and a short kilt and Skandar was wearing a towel, it felt more intimate than he’d probably intended.

…Skandar could have asked him to move it, but he wasn’t actually complaining. Jaal’s hand was warm and solid and a little calloused, and surprisingly comforting.

“He was supposed to start  _ liking  _ my sister,” he told Jaal. “They never got along, and I thought they could make a fresh start now she’s an adult…” He clenched his fists. “And then he goes and fucking  _ dies  _ while she’s frozen!”

Jaal nodded. “How is she coping?”

“…too well.” He looked at his bare feet. “She said she wouldn’t miss him.” He’d started dripping tears again.

Jaal sighed. “She has many things to be angry about, and…” he coughed, “he does sound like a difficult man?”

“ _ Illegal AI.  _ SAM turned out great,” he added hastily in case SAM was listening, “but…” He stared at Jaal’s feet. Weird pink grabby handfeet. The tile needed cleaning. “…he could have apologized for fucking up  _ my  _ career. One minute they were scouting me for N-training and the next minute I was a relay security guard. Could’ve said sorry.”

“…I can offer hugs?”

“He was  _ so _ proud when I got the hang of biotic gliding. I did after-school biotic gym training with a bunch of asari kids, right? And we used to jump off a platform into a foam pit and try to fall slowly like drifting blossoms.” Skandar demonstrated with one hand, drifting his hand down slowly. “I won third prize when I was ten. I beat all the assholes who told me aliens shouldn't even try!”

Jaal nodded. “Alec had a great deal to be proud of.”

Skandar had meant to leave his gym trophies in London, but they’d turned up in Alec’s Hyperion office, lined up on a bookcase. “Actually… yeah. Sorry for going to pieces on you when you’re having family drama too… Can I have that hug?”

Jaal reached out and folded him in and squeezed hard. He was warm and soft and smelled of flowers, and faintly of ozone. Skandar’s face wound up shoved into the pillowy flaps ‘round his neck.

Solid, padded muscle. Jaal’s rofjinn was made from something silky, soft against his bare chest, and his skin was smooth and warm and a little firmer than human skin. It was a  _ long  _ time since Skandar had hugged anyone bigger than himself. 


	5. Chapter 5

Emergency meeting. Skandar, Cora, Jaal, Vetra and Drack, gathered around the meeting table. Jaal was wearing eyeshadow on one eye and had spilled food on his good rofjinn. He hadn’t noticed. His hands were shaking.

Skandar sent up a quick prayer.  _ Merciful God, protector of children and idiots, protect Teviint, Baranj and Lathoul. And all the other idiots who did the same thing. _

Of course, that was when an urgent email from Tann blinked up on the central console.  _ Why have you shifted course towards Havarl? _

Skandar hissed through his teeth. Useless, useless little man promoted way beyond his capabilities.  _ Diplomatic disaster,  _ Skandar typed back. _ Urgent. Will explain when more practical. I told Kandros to send APEX engineers to the Kadaran situation. They'll be just as useful. _

...he'd have to tell Tann that Jaal's idiot siblings had joined a terrorist cult and taken over a holy site. How was he supposed to spin that, without Tann freaking out about Roekaar infiltrators? 

Roekaar infiltrators were  _ not  _ going to be a problem. Not on the Nexus, at least. All the Ayans on the Nexus had been thoroughly background checked.

Worry about that later!

Someone should have shot Akksul a long time ago.

“I…” Jaal said. “How do we… avoid violence? I do not think Teviint would want to kill me…” his eyes unfocussed somewhere over Skandar’s shoulder, “but I did not think she would…” Vetra squeezed his hand.

They’d brought in Cora, Vetra and Drack for strategic planning. Couldn’t take Vetra to the Forge. A pity to lose such good backup, but she looked too much like a kett to let the Roekaar see her close up. Drack was mostly staying quiet – he knew minimal casualties weren’t his strong suit.

“Well, the  _ good  _ news,” Cora said, “is that they’re not used to fighting biotics. The Bartender’s Trick works in combat, more or less, if the combatants aren’t expecting it.”

That was a useful move in Andromeda! A widespread, long-lasting lift field that trapped people in mid-air without crushing them. Perfect for giving outlaws or Roekaar time to regret their actions.

“Me, Jaal, Drack and Cora,” Skandar said, “We focus on stealth and we maximise our shield strength, to make sure anyone who shoots us gets one chance to say sorry. Drack, you will  _ not  _ use lethal force without Jaal’s permission under  _ any  _ circumstances.” Drack nodded, lips pressed together. “We have lift grenades and stun grenades,” Skandar went on, “This is no time to conserve the non-lethal weaponry – this isn’t just an attack on our friend, this is an attack on  _ the human Pathfinder’s envoy _ . And there’s still no news on how many of the Forge scientists made it out, so we could be dealing with a hostage situation.”

“The  _ Forge, _ ” Jaal said. “This is a very intentional attempt to position himself as a legitimate religious authority.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, pupils dilated, back into competent guerilla mode. “Whatever the outcome of this, every single troublemaker in the cluster will use it as propaganda.”

Vetra groaned. “Tell me that fucker isn’t  _ trying  _ to be a holy martyr?”

“He…” Jaal coughed. “He has not had a great deal to live for. Since captivity. He built his life very much around his ability to speak to Remnant, and without that…” He made a slitting gesture across his forearm.

Standard kett practice. Wreck their slaves’ bioelectric channels to limit their unarmed combat abilities. Some escaped slaves coped. Some went “if I can’t have you, no one can” on the universe.

Drack growled. “ _ Last  _ thing we need. I saw how some of those old warriors went, end of the Rebellion, when their eggs kept dying…” He shuddered.

Skandar frowned. “We can  _ try _ to non-lethally neutralize Akksul. Assuming he lets us!”

* * *

There was a gunshot and Lathoul fell to his knees. Baranj shrieked.

Teviint dropped the gun and ran.

Well, that was her out of the way for the moment. “Cover us, Drack, Cora,” Skandar snapped. “Lathoul, hold still, we’ll patch you up. Baranj, you got any first aid gear?”

Lathoul sat down slowly, his eyes wide. “She  _ shot  _ me? But I… I don’t want to die!”

Baranj had no first aid gear. Akksul hadn’t bothered to issue him any.

Kid’s vitals were stable. “You’re not dying,” Jaal barked at him. “Now  _ hold still  _ and let us handle it!”

His armour was dented, not holed. It was old but well maintained, and the Roekaar rank and file used terrible kludged-together explosive-based guns. He definitely had broken ribs, but he was breathing fine and he could walk.

Baranj was useless. He surrendered his weapons, then sat on a rock and stared at them and leaked tears. How old was he? He looked like he wasn’t done with puberty.

Jaal grabbed Baranj by the neck flaps and dragged him upright. “Baranj. Lathoul.  _ Get out of here.  _ If Akksul blows up the entire Forge with us in it, I’m not having you die as well!”

“But…” Lathoul said. “I…”

“Get  _ out,”  _ Jaal told them again. “Go  _ home. _ ”

“Get home, you two,” Drack snarled. “I’m not telling your mum you’re dead.”

Lathoul nodded and limped away as fast as he could. Baranj swallowed and ran after him.


	6. Chapter 6

And there was Akksul standing in front of the cliff face, tall and commanding and not even armoured. Skandar could just put one bullet in his eye… bad idea.

Teviint cringed behind him.

“Easy, there,” Jaal said. “Helmets off. Let them see we have faces.” He retracted his helmet into his torso armour and stood bare-faced in front of Akksul.

Everyone had heard of Jaal – Evfra’s Jaal, who breached an unbreachable facility to rescue the Moshae. It was hard to say if they’d heard of the Human Pathfinder, or  _ what  _ they’d heard of the Human Pathfinder. Skandar obeyed Jaal anyway, against his better judgement. The air was hot and humid against his exposed face, and his hair was damp with sweat.

Akksul’s followers were armed, in a scavenged and homemade way, but they seemed more fascinated than hostile. Akksul himself had one of those nasty pistols that squirted molten metal and ate through shields, but his hands weren’t near it. And his hands were mostly scar tissue, Skandar knew – he was slow on the draw.

“You would destroy our Forge,” Jaal told Akksul. “For  _ whose  _ benefit?”

Teviint pressed herself against the cliff, and half vanished into the blossoming vines.

Akksul stood tall and straight. He was a beautiful man, Skandar understood, and his captors hadn’t scarred his face. “ _ You  _ would hand the Forge to aliens!”

“ _ Aliens. _ ” Jaal stared him down. “Aliens who helped me to  _ stop our homeworld rotting. _ Aliens who’ve  _ reconquered cities  _ for the Voeld Resistance.”

“ _ Sloane Kelly” –  _ the name was a curse – “claims your Ryder saved her life!”

_ Shit.  _ He’d had less than a second to make a decision, and he still wasn’t sure whether he’d chosen based on logic, or personal loyalty, or distaste for the man who’d sweet-talked him into bed then used him as a weapon…

“And  _ who,”  _ Jaal was circling Akksul now like Kelly had circled Reyes in that cave, and SAM could see no one was hidden in the rocks this time, and the Roekaar weren’t touching their weapons, “browbeat Kelly and her man into allowing natives into the Outcasts? Who demanded Kelly hand out free food and free healthcare?” He raised his voice, broadcasting to the audience. “I saw the alternative – they were as alien as she is, and fond of torture!”

“That hairy, stinking beast,” Akksul snarled, “has no place in Heleus!”

“That  _ beast,”  _ Jaal declared, “is Iskandar Ryder. Who reclaimed cities for us on Voeld. Helped to  _ repair our planet.  _ Built settlements on  _ unclaimed land _ on Eos and invited angaran immigration!”

Akksul’s lip curled. “What will happen to these  _ immigrants,  _ I wonder? _ ” _

“ _ And _ he helped me save the Moshae.” Jaal clenched his jaw for a moment. “Your beloved Moshae.”

“I know  _ that,”  _ Akksul growled.

“He saved her life!  _ More than  _ her life!”

Akksul’s voice rose. “Stop defending them!”

“Your Moshae trusts,” Jaal waved a hand, “every one of these  _ aliens! _ More than she can trust a man who had angara murder other angara, on Kadara –”

Akksul’s lips peeled back from his teeth. “ _ Traitor, _ ” he snarled, and SAM saw him snatch his gun from his belt.

No. Not allowed to happen.

Twist the universe into a tube. Akksul  _ there  _ and Jaal  _ there  _ and Skandar in between them with all his barriers up –

The barrier sizzled. White hot metal.  _ Fuck  _ that hurt!

Skandar held the barrier and grabbed for his shotgun.

Teviint had started screaming at some point, and now she charged forwards, raised her hands and threw a solid sheet of lightning at Akksul. He made a choked noise and went down, twitching, and his gun clattered away. She kept shocking him.

Akksul’s followers were watching wide-eyed instead of moving. Skandar’s barrier was humming steadily, with no concentration needed to maintain it. Cora hadn’t moved fast enough earlier, but now she was beside Skandar and Jaal and she had a Sarissa-grade bubble over the three of them. Where was Drack?

All vital signs were steady, but Jaal’s armour was reporting injury and a heart rate spike. Skandar’s face hurt like the time a pirate set him on fire. “Hold the shield, Cora,” he barked. “I’m hit, not serious. Jaal? Drack?”

“Fighting condition,” Jaal snapped back. “Probable burns. Teviint  _ get over here! _ ”

Her lightning flickered out and Akksul stopped twitching. She screamed again and kicked him in the side. Bones snapped.

It’d be convenient if Teviint beat Akksul to death. But someone might kill her in revenge.

“Let me out of this bubble, Cora,” Jaal yelled, and she reshaped it with him on the outside.

No need. Drack sprinted forwards and scooped up Teviint like a human snatching a struggling kitten. One arm pinning her arms to her sides, the other arm pinning her knees together. Someone shot him in the back, with an explosive-based pea-shooter that couldn’t have pierced his naked skin. He didn’t seem to notice.

Akksul was conscious enough to curl into a tight defensive ball.

Teviint grabbed at Drack’s armour with her hands and feet and sent a few feeble electric pulses into it, to no effect. He jogged back and stood to attention beside his team, and Cora drew him and Jaal into her shield. Teviint kept struggling but she might as well have been fighting granite.

“Hold still, kid,” he told her calmly. “I don’t plan on hurting you. And you’ve burnt your hands.”

Skandar took a breath.

Jaal was moving normally, but his lips were pressed together with pain and there was a splash of burned-black skin along his cheekbone. “ _ Teviint, _ ” he said. “Lathoul is fine, the bombs are defused, and you need to come  _ home. _ ” She went limp.

Akksul shoved himself into a sitting position and spat blood. Tried to reach for his gun. The nearest Roekaar snatched it away.

“The alien is  _ not  _ the monster here,” Jaal told the crowd. His face was still smoking – the tissue must be dead nearly to the bone. Skandar could smell burnt meat.

Akksul stared at his gun, and the teenage boy who was holding it away from him. “I love my people!” he said desperately.

The boy looked at the gun, clenched his teeth, and shoved it into his own belt.

“Karast?” Akksul asked him.

Karast looked down at him. “Go fuck your sister. I’m not  _ Jaal’s  _ enemy. I’m going home.” He jogged up the cliff path and away.

Half the Roekaar followed him.

Akksul stood, shakily. “Kill me then, star beast! Get it over with!”

Still tempting, but still a bad idea. Quite apart from rules of engagement or PR, the remaining Roekaar still outnumbered Skandar’s team.

Cora snorted. “Marines don’t kill unarmed crazy people.”

Holy  _ fuck  _ Skandar’s face hurt. He was starting to feel vaguely dizzy. Should’ve kept the damn helmet on.

“Hey, kid,” Drack said. “If I put you down, will you behave? Because I  _ don’t  _ think you’re Roekaar any more!”

“…just want to go home,” Teviint mumbled into his chest.


	7. Chapter 7

The Tempest was bound for Daar Pelaav. Skandar, Jaal and Lathoul had lined themselves up on the narrow white beds in medbay, and Teviint was crouched against the scrubbed white wall while Lexi examined her hands. They’d herded Baranj and a few friends he’d brought along into Liam’s room, with Liam and Drack to watch them and keep them company.

Liam, in the name of diplomacy, had broken out the good beer.

“Hold  _ still,”  _ Lexi snapped. “If I was going to take you apart to see how you worked, I’d’ve done it already!”

“Um,” Teviint told her, hunching down even smaller, “can I have some more local anaesthetic?”

She wasn’t actually trained in martial arts, bioelectric or otherwise, and the violent flood of power had burned her fingers and caused minor nerve damage.

The nerves  _ should  _ heal. Skandar’s face, on the other hand? It was going to need surgery, and surgery wouldn’t stop it scarring. Long splatters were cooked white, down his left cheek and over the bridge of his nose. The pain had mostly stopped after Cora covered him in medi-gel.

“ _ Matching scars,”  _ Skandar told Jaal. “Think of it like a more badass friendship bracelet?”

Lathoul burst out laughing, and then swore and grabbed at his chest.

“Hmm,” Jaal told Lexi. “Can we minimize my cosmetic surgery? Aim for rapid healing, but with  _ no  _ attempts to minimize scarring?”

“Saves me trouble,” Lexi said, without looking away from Teviint’s thumb. “I didn’t know your culture liked scars?”

“We do  _ not,”  _ Jaal said. “But I will  _ not  _ have it forgotten that Akksul tried to kill me. Ever.”

Teviint started to sob.

* * *

The Pelaav research station was almost daylit, for once. Skandar and Jaal lay on the white metal roof, and watched the Ama Darav skycars vanish over the horizon.

A lot of Daravs had hugged Skandar and cried on him. He’d forgotten everyone’s name immediately. Several people had pulled his hair to see if it came off. Liam had copied the Tempest’s anime collection, and insisted Baranj take it home.

His face still hurt, in a vague far-off way. Lexi had cut off all the dead tissue, filtered some stem cells out of his blood, and covered the exposed muscle and bone in fancy waterproof stem cell dressings. He’d be ready to start reconstructive surgery by the time they got back to the Nexus. It was going to scar.

“I suppose I was never pretty,” he told Jaal. “But I made it through the Skyllian Blitz and years of anti-piracy operations and a lot of Heleus, with no major scarring.” He sighed. “I’ll get used to it.”

“A pity,” Jaal said, and carefully patted his hair. “We shall be beautiful together. To krogan.”

Skandar shuffled over a bit, and rested his head on Jaal’s belly. “I don’t regret taking your orders, but… maybe we should have kept all our armour on.”

“Perhaps,” Jaal said. “I  _ believe  _ it helped with de-escalation. I am very sorry you were injured, though. That was a great risk you took, in my defense.”

He ran his hand over the un-bandaged part of Skandar’s forehead.

“The Havarl Resistance are recruiting,” Jaal added. “They told me young Karast has signed up already, accompanied by several poorly armed friends. He specifically refused to work with “creepy blue tentacle things that want my DNA.” But expressed a desire for “plenty of huge lizard monsters to hide behind.””

“…Well. That’ll do.”

The gas giant still took up half the blue sky, and a herd of lesser mantas drifted past below it. Alec would have loved the view.

Jaal tugged the elastic band off the end of Skandar’s plait, and started busily un-braiding it. Reached his head. Started braiding it again, lumpily. He’d learn.

Skandar took a half-decent long range photo of a manta, twisting into a mid-air doughnut to scratch its rear end against its face.  _ Circle dragon! _ he captioned it, and sent it to Li Hua.

It’d take hours to get to Aya, but she was probably busy anyway. The last he’d heard, she’d built a six-inch Remnant Observer and started training it to carry pens.

Jaal gave up on the braid, left it loose, and balanced the elastic on Skandar’s forehead. Skandar pocketed it, laughed, and rolled away.

Jaal sat up slowly and folded his legs beneath him. "Perhaps this is inappropriate of me," he said. "If this is inappropriate. Er. You may forget I ever raised the topic?"

"Out with it."

"I would very much like to kiss you."

Skandar blinked for a second then went for it. Jaal's lips were soft and warm and he smelled of disinfectant, and faintly of blood and burned flesh.

_ I nearly lost him.  _ Barriers sizzling and that black charcoal splash along his face. There was a big hole in his face under the dressing, sprayed with stem cells and left to scar over.  _ Could have lost him like Kiran Ganambarr, quietly bleeding out in that underground armoury and saying well shit, it’s been an honour…  _ Skandar pulled Jaal closer, arms round his shoulders, and straddled his lap. Legs round his hips. Hang on  _ tight. _

Jaal squeezed him almost uncomfortably close, and rubbed their noses gently together. Freed one hand to stroke down his back.

Skandar grabbed the back of Jaal’s head and kissed him forcefully, and then yelped as the movement tugged at his wounds.

“I cannot kiss it better,” Jaal said, and brushed his lips across the tip of Skandar’s nose. “I can try?”

“Let’s just…” close up, Jaal’s eyes were blue like little galaxies, “let’s just stay here for a while.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to JaguarVakarian for fixing the theology, GryphonRampant and MyrddinDerwydd for headcanons, Becky for the angel joke, and especially ramblingandpie for betaing!


End file.
